While your resume does contain facts about your academic and professional past, you need to make sure that you are assessing the relevance of each achievement rather than simply listing things as they happened. You want your resume to resonate with an employer in the way that an effective advertisement does with a consumer.

Because the process of becoming a licensed physician is highly regulated, most of your credentials will speak for themselves. Therefore, you won’t have to face many of the obstacles faced by people in other professions with regard to their resumes, such as explaining confusing professional backgrounds or re-shaping the focus of the experience to appeal to a different field. As such, your primary goal is to present those hard-earned credentials in a clear and concise manner, such that the reader can immediately zero in on the most important and impressive aspects of your candidacy.

You can make certain things in your resume stand out through their placement on the page, by using stylistic devices such as bolding or italicizing, and by monitoring the amount of information on your resume. Some people believe that a packed resume equals a good resume. This isn’t true. A candidate who pares down his/her resume to the most pertinent information will be much better off than a candidate who crams his/her resume full of irrelevant information.

The following is a list of the most common headings used on a physician’s resume. Before you begin drafting your resume, go through this list and jot down everything you can think of from your background that relates to each category (if applicable). Getting all of this information assembled ahead of time will make it easier to create a layout that maximizes your experience:

• Education (School Name, School Location, Degree Earned, Graduation Dates)
• Academic Honors/Activities/Leadership Positions
• Research
• Internships/Clinics/Residencies/Fellowships (Employer Name, Employer Location, Specialty Area, Dates)
• Practice Experience (Name of Practice/Hospital, Location, Title, Type of Practice, Brief Description)
• Specialty Area
• Publications
• Presentations
• Professional Memberships
• Licensure/Board Certification
• Other Work Experience (Employer Name, Employer Location, Title, Dates of Employment, Brief Job Description)
• Professional Awards/Honors
• Language Skills

You want to present employers with a clear snapshot of your experience—one that can be grasped in a matter of seconds. In order to do this effectively, you should list your experiences in a reverse chronological order—from most recent to oldest—and include dates for your education and experiences. Job titles, names of degrees, names of schools, etc. should be clear at first glance.

As a medical student applying for a residency, the focus of your resume will be on your education, academic honors, and any clinical experience. You will also want to highlight any extracurricular activities that demonstrate leadership qualities or are relevant to the medical profession, particularly if they relate to your chosen specialty area. Other things you will want to include may be publications, directed research, and foreign language skills. If you entered medicine from a prior profession, you should provide information about your work history on your resume as well.

Conclusion

While this article serves to highlight the primary things that you need to consider when creating or revising your resume, there are no hard and fast rules. Each situation is unique and therefore you need to spend some time considering what it is that you want to convey to the person reading your resume. The Certified Professional Resume Writers at The Doctor Job are well-versed in the art of resume writing and can provide expert guidance to you throughout the process.

Relevant Articles:

Relevant files:

	Sample CV - Physicians
	Sample CV - Residents and Fellows